February 26, 2004: Ron Wood performs with Rod Stewart at Madison Square
Garden in New York City.

Ron Wood
(February 2004): The Stones back on the road

We
have to clear the engine room first. We have to clear Charlie first. If
he's willing, I think the rest of us will be.

Early March 2004: After only four
months off work, the Rolling Stones gather and hold a meeting in Paris, France, to
discuss their next album and tour plans.

Keith Richards
(2005): The phone call

I
usually wait for a phone call from Mick, which is usually about a year
after the tour finishes. He'll go, Shouldn't we be doing something?
And I'll say, OK, let's get together, you know.

March 15, 2004: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are at the 19th annual Rock
& Roll Hall of Fame Awards ceremonies
at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, the former inducting Jann Wenner,
the latter ZZ Top. Keith Richards takes
part in the end of the evening's jam with Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Stevie
Wonder and others.

Ron Wood
(March 2004): Dear doctor, please help me, I'm damaged

The
doctors said that if I give up smoking now I can nip it in the bud - I
still have powerful lungs. But they say if I smoke for another year, I
could get emphysema and - boom - my lungs could collapse. When they did
the scan on my lungs they also did my liver and kidneys and said they are
in remarkably good shape for someone who has put what I've put through
them.

In
the old days I would start with about eight pints of Guinness then go on
to the vodka, a couple of bottles of that. Then go on to Sambuca, a bottle
of that. And that was every day... It started with the Faces.... Then Keith,
he was a great drinking partner of mine and Rod was too. Basically everybody
I met was a drinker.

Mick
is very supportive. He didn't threaten me at all. There were stories that
I was going to be kicked out of the Stones. That's all bollocks. He just
came as a friend and said, Ronnie, you can't just have one can you?
Please. I love you. Help yourself.

I
still wear my little medallion. I say my Serenity Prayer every day. But
I still find it very hard to walk past an open bar. Every day is a challenge.
I just don't like to be surrounded by the booze because it's too tempting...
Alcoholism runs in my family. It's in my blood. My grandparents, my parents,
my brothers, everybody in my family is an alcoholic. So I'm setting a new
trend here and it's bloody hard work. Everybody says I would be dead if
I'd carried on drinking.

It
looks as if the Stones are starting in the next month or so... Originally
we weren't even thinking of starting until October.

On
the road we all have our little routines. Keith lives like he is at home
- same music, books. Mick is always working - e-mailing, on the phone.
We live in a bubble. Getting on the plane is like getting on the Tube to
go to work.

May 5, 2004: Keith Richards joins Willie Nelson, along with Merle Haggard,
Jerry Lee Lewis and Kid Rock, for a
televised concert at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles.

May 16, 2004: Mick Jagger catches the film Fahrenheit 9/11 at the
Cannes Film Festival in France.

May 20, 2004: Mick Jagger watches a cricket match between England and New
Zealand in London.

May 21, 2004: Keith Richards guests onstage with blues performer David
Honeyboy Edwards at The BoxCar in
near-to-home Southport, Connecticut.

June 2004: Charlie Watts is diagnosed with throat cancer.

Charlie
Watts & Keith Richards (2005-06): Charlie getting diagnosed

Charlie:
I'd had a lump in my neck for two or three years. It was diagnosed as benign
but then the doctor took it out, found it was cancerous and then they found
it in my left tonsil, too. I lay there thinking, Well, normally you
die... When I first found out about the cancer, I literally went to
bed and cried. I thought that was it, that I'd only have another three
months.

Keith:
As Charlie put it, One minute I'm standing at Ronnie Scott's getting
a standing ovation and the next minute I'm on a marble slab.

Early June 2004: Mick Jagger,
Keith Richards and Ron Wood hold another band meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

June 4, 2004: Ron Wood guests with the Charlatans onstage in London, England.

We
had OK'd the tour. (Charlie) was straight up about it: The doctor says
I have a 90% chance of being completely cured. I would have been in
such a state. If Charlie had said, I can't do this tour, I've faced
mortality, we would have had to change our minds. No one pressured
him. But the treatments couldn't have been easy. I kept worrying: Is
he eating? I'm like a nanny.

Keith Richards
(2005): Starting the Bang

It
started in June last year, I went to Mick's house in France, and we sat
around. And at the time Charlie was pretty ill, and we didn't know, and
we were looking at each other across the couches going, Look, this is
it. I go, Mick, you're on drums and I'll double on bass. In
a way, we had to strip it down, and as it went along we realized that we
had something going there and so we'd cut it all in Mick's house. There
was a point I'm sure where he wanted to kick us out. But as I said to Mick,
Listen,
once upon a time, we cut a record in the South of France in my house, and
it's called Exile On Main Street, and now it's your turn.

June 14, 2004: The Charlie Watts Tentet live album, Watts at Scott's,
recorded in 2001, is released.

June 20, 2004: Ron Wood joins the Charlatans again, then Bob Dylan for
his whole concert, at the Fleadh Festival in
Finsbury Park, London.

June 23-24, 2004: Ron Wood joins ex-bandmate Jeff Beck at the latter's
concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

June 26, 2004: Ron Wood guests onstage with Rod Stewart again, at The Mall
in London.

June 29, 2004: The DVD on the 2003 Toronto SARS festival, Toronto Rocks,
featuring the Rolling Stones, is released.
Ron Wood performs with his brother Art's band at the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham,
London.

I
didn't even want the family to come in and see me. The best way - for me
at any rate - was to be left alone. Totally alone. Like a dog that's been
hurt... You go in there and you're terrified. All the machines, it's like
space age stuff. The surgeons and nurses literally have your life in their
hands.

I
didn't think of the Rolling Stones at all. Mick rang a few times: You
have to get well. Don't worry about us. I was sorry not to be there
when Mick and Keith were writing. In a way, it was fortuitous, because
they were on their own. It was a lot of fun for them, to be together.

July 9-10, 2004: Keith Richards performs at two filmed Gram Parsons tribute
concerts in Santa Barbara and Los
Angeles, California, which include a duet with Norah Jones.

August-September 2004: Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards continue recording demos for the Rolling Stones' next
album at La Fourchette and in St. Vincent in the West Indies.

Mick Jagger
(September 2004): Writing with Dave and Keith

I
write songs a lot with different people. I write a lot of stuff with Dave,
I write a lot of stuff with Keith, and I write a lot of stuff on my own.
There's hundreds of different ways of writing songs within that formula.
I just spent two weeks writing songs with Keith and some are songs where
I'm just there on my own and Keith walks in and plays the bass on what
I've written. And some days it's the reverse, I go in and play the piano
on something he's written. Dave and I are very concentrated and we're quite
detailed. We force one another to finish everything. We like to do our
work and get it done.

Mick Jagger
& Keith Richards (2005): The Glimmer Twins back at work

Mick:
What
it really was is, you know, Keith and I started doing a lot of stuff just
on our own, and then we were just having a laugh with a lot of it. I'd
already written quite a lot of material, and Keith had written some, so
it wasn't like we start from nothing... Keith was very supportive of my
songwriting, guitar-playing, bass-playing, drumming.

We
were in such a confined space - some of it was in France, some of it in
the Caribbean - without loads of hangers-on. There was nowhere to hide.
Is it good? Is is not good? Then bung it out the window. There were no
three-hour blues jams. There wasn't time.

Keith:
(Charlie's
illness) pulled (Mick and I) together quicker than I would have expected.
Because the man does like to keep his distances. On the basic level of
putting songs together, it made us play together more, on guitars and piano.
Mick, as a guitar player, has finally gotten there... He's also a good
drummer - not in a technical sense. But he's got a great beat, good feel...

It
was all built on two acoustic guitars, and in such a sparse and stripped-down
way that if you tried to elaborate on it later you'd lose the whole essence
of it.

August 14, 2004: The public learns Charlie Watts has cancer and is receiving
treatment.

September 30, 2004: Mick Jagger holds a press conference with Dave Stewart
at Essex House in New York City to
promote the soundtrack to the movie Alfie.

Mick Jagger
(September 2004): More Rolling Stones on the way

Keith
and I have been writing lots of songs for the new Rolling Stones album.
We haven't booked the tour yet and when we do we'll let you know, but there
will definitely be another one... We just started (writing), and it will
be out sometime next year. We'll start recording in November. It should
be good. I've been writing the last month for that, and I'm quite excited
by what I've got so far.

I
don't know who's going to be ready yet - (the new) Wembley Stadium or the
Rolling Stones. Charlie's a lot better. He's had all his treatments and
he's been pronounced sort of free and clear of everything, so we're very
pleased about that. And Keith and I have been writing new material for
the Stones' new album. I don't know when the Stones will actually tour,
but I suspect we'll do the album and then we'll do a tour.

I
think the excitement that drew me to this group in the beginning is the
same excitement that draws me to it now.

October 7, 2004: Ron Wood plays onstage with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings
at the Royal Festival Hall in London,
England. Charlie Watts is in attendance.

October 13, 2004: Mick Jagger attends the world premiere of Alfie
at the Empire Leicester Square in London,
England.

Mick Jagger
(September 2004): The coincidental playboy

I've
always been a rather career-minded person and any vague resemblance of
my life to a playboy's is merely coincidental.

October 17, 2004: Ron Wood guests again with Rod Stewart onstage, at the
Royal Albert Hall in London.

October 18, 2004: Mick Jagger attends the New York premiere of Alfie.

October 18, 2004: Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart's soundtrack album to Alfie
is released.

October 20, 2004: Ron Wood performs again with his brother Art's band at
the Eel Pie Club in London, England.

November
1, 2004: The Rolling Stones' 8th live (double) album, Live Licks,
is released.

November-early December 2004:
The Rolling Stones hold recording sessions for their next album, A Bigger Bang,
their first full album since 1997's Bridges to Babylon, at La Fourchette
in PocÚ sur Cisse, France.

Keith Richards
(2005): Charlie's back!

I
don't think that, between us, there was any doubt that Charlie would beat
(cancer). I wondered how long and debilitating it might be, which Charlie
answered in spades when he came back. He looked exactly the same, like
he hadn't done anything more than comb his hair and puit a suit on... When
he came in, we were still running down songs, rehearsing. You don't usually
go into fifth gear in rehearsal. You lay back a little. But Charlie came
in as if to prove I'm back. He played every rehearsal like a show.

Charlie
Watts (2005): Rejoining the band

I
was very frightened. Mick and Keith were getting on very well and Mick
was mucking about on the drums. What they were doing was very good and
I felt, Crikey, have I got anything to give? and I was very scared.

Charlie
Watts, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (2005): An intimate Bang

Charlie:
(Mick
and Keith are) getting on very well at the moment. I think it was the way
this record was done - simply. Even when I came back, it was simple. For
a while it was just the three of us.

Mick:
We
did this record with minimal technology, just suitcases of computers. I
didn't want to go into a massive
glass-and-stone $10 million studio with all the bells and whistles. All
that technology can change the way you play. We pared it down, and the
intimacy worked... (I)t was a better vibe than last time but you never
know why that is. We weren't only in my house in France but wherever we
were, yes it was (kept simple). We were in places where there wasn't a
lot of distraction... so we just got on and did what we did with this small
group of people and we were very focused.

Keith:
We kicked off this album on a small scale and we kept it like that all
the way through. There's nobody on it except the band. This album said,
Don't
elaborate on me. Make me small and I'll give you a big one.

November 14, 2004: Ron Wood accepts the induction of the Rolling Stones
at the UK Hall of Fame at the Hackney
Empire in London, England.